I've got a question I wonder if anybody know how I can do this. I wanting to make like an exteral image package file that a program can then read and load the images out of that package. Is there a way to do that?
The only way to do that would be to include a scripting component to your program. You would have to program the whole parser yourself, and then instead of the usual executables you would load the script file, parse it, and load the new "add-on".
Other than that, I don't think it's possible to just create and executable, and make it part of an already compiled program. You "could" have the programs communicate, making the effect of an add-in. For example, Winsock. Have them message each other. Meh, I don't know, but what you ask isn't directly possible.
I don't know what they do, but you could certainly add files to a program, you just can't compile them into the original project, or its resource file. You could place them in an Image folder, or even zip them up. You can even read a few images into a file. Search the forums, I've seen an example or two.
It source code in VB that paks multiple files into one file without compression, and can easily be extracted. If modified, you can have it to where it holds (as well as loads) just images. That'll be your package.
After trying to use the property bag in vb, it didn't work. I did find a little info on resource library files, like I'm wanting to do, but no example source code to see how to actually use a resource library dll. Does anybody here know where I can find a good tutorial on making and using resource library dlls to store gif's in or an example source code?
Thats for that example code for the property bag feature in vb. I'll give it a try.
I've started to get farther on using making resource library dlls now. I found an example code to learn from to load bmp, icons, and strings form an external dll file but not for the custom section in a resource dll. I've got the gif images stored in the custom section in my dll, but now how do I load the gif's images from the dll into my program?